During my thirty years of consulting I've become intrigued by the challenge of making organizations more simple -- for managers, employees, and customers. Nobody tries to make organizations more complex -- but it happens nonetheless -- and unless we actively counter that complexity it becomes hard to get things done. My consulting work and my writing therefore strives to inject simplicity into a complex world. When I'm not writing blogs, I'm a senior partner with Schaffer Consulting in Stamford, Connecticut. I'm also the author of a number of HBR articles and five books, the latest of which is "Simply Effective: How to Cut Through Complexity in Your Organization and Get Things Done" (Harvard Press).

How to Make Sense Out of Irrational Behavior

Have you ever wondered why perfectly sensible, rational, and intelligent colleagues resist or reject perfectly sensible, rational, and intelligent ideas? Obviously it’s not because they are stupid. There is just something going on that we don’t realize.

Here’s a quick example: A large, over-crowded urban hospital was trying to free up beds by reducing unnecessarily long patient stays. To that end, an analysis showed that one particular floor never seemed to discharge patients over the weekend. When the nursing and administrative team was asked about this data, the head nurse insisted that she would not support any attempts to increase weekend discharges, saying only that it wasn’t a good time for patients to leave the hospital. Clearly, on the surface, her position made no sense. Eventually, she shared the fact that several years earlier a few patients had lost valuables during weekend discharges. So, to insure their security, the head nurse made sure that patients’ personal items could only be unlocked from the safe in her presence (she had the only key) — and she didn’t work on weekends!

It’s easy to laugh at a story like this one. But the reality is that the nurse was doing what she thought best, which made her appear irrational to others. Once the underlying history and motivation was revealed, her behavior made sense. It then prompted a review not only of the discharge procedures, but also of how best to secure personal property.

Irrational behavior is part of the human condition. There’s a long list of things that we know we should avoid, but do them anyway; and an equally long list of things that we know are good for us but that we avoid. That’s why people smoke cigarettes, drive after having a few cocktails, or don’t floss their teeth. At some level, conscious or unconscious, each of us has a compelling reason — such as short-term gratification, peer acceptance, convenience, lifestyle, and many more — for doing the “wrong” thing.

Organizations of course are composed of people, all of whom act irrationally at various times and seemingly do the “wrong” things. So it’s no wonder that we often run into a colleague, boss, or subordinate that just can’t seem to consider a completely reasonable suggestion. If you find yourself in this situation, here are two simple and “rational” guidelines to keep in mind:

Don’t try to fight irrationality with rationality. It will only make you more frustrated and the other person more defensive. No matter how many well-constructed arguments you offer, you won’t make headway until you understand the underlying motivation that is driving the other person.

Focus on discovering, understanding, and embracing the other person’s rationale. Even if your adversary is being driven by unconscious motivations, it’s important to try to figure them out. Resistance to apparent logic always comes from somewhere, and you won’t be able to breakthrough until you understand the reason. For example, sales people often resist logical and straightforward sales-model changes because they fear that compensation will be affected, or that customer relationships will be harmed. Until you understand and deal with those underlying issues it’s difficult to make headway.

Years ago a senior executive told me that managing an organization would be a lot easier if there weren’t any people involved. On the other hand, it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.

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Great tips on how to deal with irrational behavior. In my experience you are correct to seek to understand the underlying motivation as this can lead to addressing the underlying problems however sometimes irrational behaviors are driven by underlying irrational feelings that may or may not be conscious. In these cases, I put on my listening cap and try to express as much genuine empathy as I can. This can help to disarm the resistance. Also, getting the other person to understand the problem you are trying to solve and asking for their ideas on how to solve the problem can make them a champion of the solution.

Ron, nice article. You’ve revealed one of the basic principles used in intelligence analysis. That is when something doesn’t make sense, it’s invariably because you’re missing some information that would otherwise explain it. This principle is reliable because humans don’t do random very well. This discovery principle can also be usefully applied to understanding the actions of companies, foreign governments and military forces.

Bingo. Thank you Ron. Just wanted to understand further – How do you effectively discover the rationale all/most of the time? Sometime they are not forthcoming and sometimes you feel yourself in the loop of contradictions.

If it was easy to figure out what was behind the irrational behavior, then we wouldn’t struggle with arguments that don’t seem to make sense. The reality is that it’s hard to figure out what’s behind another person’s behavior or attitude, and there’s no easy answer to your question. You just have to start with the assumption that there is indeed some rationale for how this person is acting (or what he/she is saying), and then keep asking questions or probing or testing to find out. You also sometimes have to put yourself into that person’s shoes and look at the issue from their point of view. But in the end, it’s a tough process, especially since the underlying rationale might also be unconscious or invisible to the other person as well. Thanks for your comment. Ron

I have observed seemingly irrational behavior in business environment very often. In fact, if ‘rational behavior’ is defined as behavior motivated ONLY by the business efficiency and goals or, in other words, aiming to maximize benefit for the company or organization, then I think this kind of behavior is very rare. People usually have personal motives mixed in – consciously or unconsiously. My opinion is that it may be tolerable or even fine as long as there is no strong conflict of interests between the personal and organizational motives, especially if the person has broad power in the organization.

My comment for Ron – I believe your method works only if the other person’s ‘unconscious’ motivation is not simply being driven by purely personal motives that have very little to do with the organization’s (and yours, by extention) benefits. In this (quite ubiquitous) case, you can not work your way through to more ‘rational behavior’ even if you understand perfectly well what is actually on the other person’s mind.

Quite often, the reason someone’s behavior seems irrational to you is simply because they’re different from you. They have different drivers, needs and personality traits than you, and those are ingrained permanently. Your behavior and reactions can seem just as irrational to them.

If you understand those differences, you can adapt your reactions and behaviors to better meet those needs and drivers in the other person. If they understand those differences as well, they in turn can dial down the “irrational” stuff in dealing with you and, together, your level of mutual communication and resulting productivity increases substantially.

The more different you are in relation to a particular individual, the more irrational you may appear. A quality validated and normed personality assessment can be an effective tool in closing the “rationality gap” by illustrating exactly where those differences lie and how to adapt.

Those who assume what they see is all there cheat themselves. I question. I always have. When someone came to me with stories about others, I questioned those..which means the last on the gossip chain. A little patience and listening goes a long way, for both parties. This position is open to all members of any organization.

Those who assume what they see is all there is cheat themselves. I question. I always have. When someone came to me with stories about others, I questioned those..which means the last on the gossip chain. A little patience and listening goes a long way, for both parties. This position is open to all members of any organization.